builder of narrative, drawer of real and imagined objects, investigator of self

Finding Myself. Chasing Happiness. Again.

So I’m in this position again where I want to write a blog post. And I’m already about to stop myself because the title has the phrasing “finding myself” in it and I think that’s corny. Alas, I’m just throwing myself out there and maybe you’ve had those feelings of being corny too. If you’ve made it here, I thank you.

This comes from my obsession with Instagram and external validation. This is a cycle I’ve been at odds with for a while, but I’m just now voicing it.

What’s new about that? Another person admitting they’re consciously or subconsciously seeking validation? Unfortunately for all of us, not a lot is new about it.

But the one thing that is new is that I’m the one doing it. Alan. And maybe this is something a lot of other people don’t struggle with, but I do. So I will push, push, push forward anyway.

As an illustration of this instagram situation, I’ll sometimes post something and it will get a lot of attention and I’ll think to myself, “yeah, that really was a good one. and a lot of people think so. therefore it must be good!” Then the next day I’ll post something that I think is really good and then it won’t get a ton of attention and I’ll get super down on myself like, “huh. i wonder what I did wrong with this one. this one isn’t as good because not as many people liked it.”

Even though it was something that I myself liked just moments before, now I’m questioning and critiquing where I fell short.

This instagram narrative can be translated to my own life, the real life, the non-digital life.

(I mean they’re all part of the real life, but I think you know what I mean. But do I even know what I mean? Maybe the digital life should not be considered separate from the non-digital life. It’s all one life anyway. Just different expressions. Facets. That’s not too hard to imagine. If it was that way.)

***also: live update, I’ve checked instagram three times since I began writing this post about 10 minutes ago. other details include: I’m drinking water and sitting in a red chair. the fan behind me is spinning, but the air isn’t really getting to me.***

Finally okay. So I think I place too much value in the opinions of others. And, of course, people that I admire, their opinion holds greater weight. Those values cannot be quantified. For instance, does the Like of one Admired Person hold the value of 20 strangers?

(this sort of reminds me of this old ethical question about the value of human life and whether all life has infinite value. if I remember correctly, the logic was that if the value of one human life is infinite, then it didn’t matter if you had to save one human or one hundred humans in the face of a catastrophe, you would not be able to choose because while one hundred times infinity is infinity, one time infinity is also infinity. someone come correct me on this if i’m not remembering correctly.)

this post is getting a little sloppy. but I’m trying this new technique recommended by a friend to not have this dire need to wrap up each blog post with a tidy bow. to just let the posts be what they are.

is this post for me or is this post for you?

hard to say

if you’ve made it this far, what a ride, huh?

Or maybe this wasn’t a ride for you. Maybe this was really quite boring. You’re still here because you wanted to see how bored one individual could actually end up.

Is that bored individual me or you?

I don’t think I’m bored. Though I do seem to find many things to pass the time.

This comes back to a notion of distraction. Some say we find things to fill our time so that we don’t have to be quiet with our own minds. With all this technology I know I’m almost always checking my phone when I don’t know what else to do.

I’m making an active attempt to change that.

Anyway. I’m not trying to wrap up this post in a tidy little bow or anything, but I wanted to see if I could bring this thing around full circle.

A few things from the beginning: finding myself, corny, instagram.

What did I learn from writing this post? Not much. I don’t necessarily feel better. In fact I feel scared that you might have actually read this and have some insight into my head. But maybe I’m not that weird and many people’s brains are like this. I wrote a poem about that once.